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Scotty

Story, Monday March 19, 2018

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36 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I believe this means that once Ellen gets a chance to 'discuss' this matter with Magus, she will kick the living crap out of him. She was not best pleased with her creation to begin with. Now she has learned that she was never meant to be more than a tool for Magus, she will be furious.

Well, which Magus? All we really know is that the diamond produced (at least) two bodies with different-colored clothes and hair. Should we be married to the idea that the one with brown hair is Elliot? Anyway, the one that looks more like Magus looks to be helpless on the ground now, and Ellen is probably concentrating on keeping Sirleck restrained. So Magus, whichever body he's in and how many of him there may be, should have a chance to at least start to apologize and explain before the kicking of crap begins. Elliot might also been aware while he was merged with or possessed by Magus, so he might provide some defense. Forgiveness seems to be one of Elliot's strong points, at least when its forgiving sins against himself.

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3 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Well, which Magus? All we really know is that the diamond produced (at least) two bodies with different-colored clothes and hair. Should we be married to the idea that the one with brown hair is Elliot?

You're absolutely correct. Just because the alterations in Magus' appearance were induced magically, such as his hair colour, there is no reason to believe that the diamond would have removed the effects from Elliot and sent them along with Magus.

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Just now, The Old Hack said:

I believe this means that once Ellen gets a chance to 'discuss' this matter with Magus, she will kick the living crap out of him. She was not best pleased with her creation to begin with. Now she has learned that she was never meant to be more than a tool for Magus, she will be furious.

Yeah... I would leave in a hurry when this is done, if I were Magus.

Well I would expect that knowing that Magus was only acting on the guidance of an Immortal might make Ellen have some forgiveness for Magus. Magus really had no other choice since he wasn't in any position to ask Elliot for help himself.

 

Back on the subject of Ellen's ability to fight Sirleck, it could be foreshadowed that Ellen could do so way back at Grace's birthday when she was able to resist Magus' attempt to manipulate her into zapping Elliot and instead, redirected her beam at Tedd. Dan might not have thought of that, but it would make it seem plausible that Ellen wouldn't be easily manipulated because of that. It also wouldn't surprise me if Dan did think of that and we'll have Magus mention that he gave Sirleck the idea of possessing Ellen, believing that Ellen was capable of fighting Sirleck long enough for Magus to recover from the diamond and then properly deal with Sirleck.

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2 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Well I would expect that knowing that Magus was only acting on the guidance of an Immortal might make Ellen have some forgiveness for Magus. Magus really had no other choice since he wasn't in any position to ask Elliot for help himself.

I wouldn't bet my shoes on that.

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2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

While I love the fact that Ellen is fighting back, I hope Dan has a good explanation for why she is able to when none of Sirleck's previous hosts apparently could. The most likely possibilities in my mind are that it has to do with either her status as a Dewitchery Duplicate, or the change in magic. Another possibility is she has some spell not covered in the Ellen Demo which could help.

Edit: Actually, given what we know about the change in magic it seems unlikely it would have an effect on Ellen or Sirleck, unless maybe Sirleck was somehow using his own magic defenses to subdue his victims. I'm not going to totally abandon the idea until we know for sure, but it seems a lot less likely than I initially thought.

I was thinking that Sirleck never got around to possessing either awakened or mages, perhaps sticking to people with money, a nice outward sign of a successful host.  He might simply have never gotten around to looking for a magic-user who might actually have greater than normal magic resistance.  And Ellen, who is magical in origin, does have an advantage in magic resistance as has been pointed out.

In my headcanon, it's just because she is a bad ass.  Cause you know, Bad Assery is a separate stat you can have, and comes into play at special dramatic moments.  ;)

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

And why should you care, any of you? Well, consider what Tedd and Grace's kids will be like. If they can't inherit human magic potential, they can't be wizards or seers. Seems like ending the line that produced the most important Seer on Planet Earth for hundreds of years or even of all human history up to this day might be something that the Will of Magic would like not to happen. Ever wonder why Magic sent its Emissary to Grace?

Well, we know that the child of two mages, according to Pandora, is almost certainly another mage, but we don't know what the child of a mage and a Tulougol Seyunolu will be.  We don't even know for sure how Grace can procreate (perhaps two different ways?) or if she inherited Mr. Guyur's ability to create eggs without a mate.  Heck, for all we know, if Grace and Tedd want to ensure a mage child, they might be able to include DNA from a third donor, or it might be moot (might turn out that the child of a mage and a Tulougol Seyunolu will be mage always).  Or the child might be more like Grace, who is herself a very powerful, important person.

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I do hope that Elliot's ocular powers come into play.  It would also be interesting if he is able to affect things in the spiritual plane because of the new spell.

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Wild theory: Body snatching monsters (not necessarily Aberrations) are a common enough danger in the Second Life universe that children are taught some sort of mental discipline that allows them to fight back.

2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

No, it doesn't look the same. It also doesn't look the same as Elliot's jacket on Friday, which is one reason why I so quickly decided my first amazing crackpot theory for the current comic was most likely wrong (and a bitter disappointment, that.)

...

It's stated in the first panel of #2464 of Part 23: The Fate of Magic. Uryuom aren't mentioned at all in any other place in Fate. Neither is Uryuom-based magic mentioned anywhere in Pandora's conversation with the Emmisary way back in the second part of Sister III. The Will of Magic of magic in that single reference is answering Tedd's question of how long is too long to hold a transformation without it becoming permanent  under the new rules for human magic. That doesn't say that there won't be any changes in Uryuom-based magic, or in the difficulty of people with Uryuom-based magic acquiring, learning, or inheriting human-based. Yes, I'm thinking that Dan might be thinking the whole entertaining but restrictive argument Dan made in Q&A #7 was a mistake like he thought Ellen not being able to resist Sirleck was a mistake--unless Dan was trolling us as the last panel in that same #2203 just might hint at.

And why should you care, any of you? Well, consider what Tedd and Grace's kids will be like. If they can't inherit human magic potential, they can't be wizards or seers. Seems like ending the line that produced the most important Seer on Planet Earth for hundreds of years or even of all human history up to this day might be something that the Will of Magic would like not to happen. Ever wonder why Magic sent its Emissary to Grace?

The jacket is the same shape as far as I can tell. The shades of gray are a bit different, but I think different lighting in the mental battlefield and/or artistic license could account for that. (As an argument for artistic license, note that SirleckEllen's jacket is yet another shade of gray.)

Back in Squirrel Prophet, Disco Wizard speaking on behalf of Will of Magic that "Species with magic woven into their very nature, such as Uryuoms, aren't at risk of suddenly not being able to change forms." Granted this was in reference to the full Magic Change rather than the minimal one we got, but I don't see why the minimal change would have more of an effect on Uryuoms and Seyunolus than the full change. I thought there was a more definitive statement somewhere that Uryuoms wouldn't be affected period, but I can't find it, so I could have just been mis-remembering Disco Wizard's statement.

At any rate, I guess Immortals (and possibly transforming Aberrations, depending on how much magic is a part of them) will still be able to transform, but whether magic works exactly the same for them is still up in the air.

Finally, unless it was stated somewhere outright that human magical potential cannot be passed down through part-Uryuom lines, I would assume they would be (even without the change in magic). After all, while the Q&A7 said that it would be hard for Grace to learn magic, it also said it was possible.

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8 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

I would love to claim that I've been tallying Ellen and Sirleck separately in the counting thread because I saw this coming.

As if we didn't know you knew.

15 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Dan may have given himself license to change anything he said about magic before. 

So we won't be seeing a digitally enhanced. Special Edition, EGS to justify the changes?

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5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Back in Squirrel Prophet, Disco Wizard speaking on behalf of Will of Magic that "Species with magic woven into their very nature, such as Uryuoms, aren't at risk of suddenly not being able to change forms." Granted this was in reference to the full Magic Change rather than the minimal one we got, but I don't see why the minimal change would have more of an effect on Uryuoms and Seyunolus than the full change. I thought there was a more definitive statement somewhere that Uryuoms wouldn't be affected period, but I can't find it, so I could have just been mis-remembering Disco Wizard's statement.

Not sure if there was an explicit statement like that, but there is also distinct LACK of statement that anything COULD change for Uryuoms.

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Yes, I'm thinking that Dan might be thinking the whole entertaining but restrictive argument Dan made in Q&A #7 was a mistake

First, that page was talking about Grace, but was actually about Noah, who is chimera who DID learned human magic.

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

Finally, unless it was stated somewhere outright that human magical potential cannot be passed down through part-Uryuom lines, I would assume they would be (even without the change in magic). After all, while the Q&A7 said that it would be hard for Grace to learn magic, it also said it was possible.

Second, this: the page directly says that Grace or her ancestors CAN learn human magic.

Third ... maybe there doesn't need any change in Uryuom magic and just change in human magic can make easier for part-Uryuoms to learn human magic.

6 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

Well, we know that the child of two mages, according to Pandora, is almost certainly another mage, but we don't know what the child of a mage and a Tulougol Seyunolu will be.

It was child of two WIZARDS being WIZARD.

6 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

We don't even know for sure how Grace can procreate (perhaps two different ways?) or if she inherited Mr. Guyur's ability to create eggs without a mate. 

Even if she didn't inherited Mr. Guyur's ability, she could procreate with another Uryuom. She also can get pregnant unless she's half-squirrel. Therefore, she CERTAINLY can procreate in two different ways.

6 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

Heck, for all we know, if Grace and Tedd want to ensure a mage child, they might be able to include DNA from a third donor, or it might be moot (might turn out that the child of a mage and a Tulougol Seyunolu will be mage always).

Maybe.

Or Grace and Tedd's child will be wizard just by "luck" (narrative convenience). If we ever get that far in the story.

7 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Well, which Magus? All we really know is that the diamond produced (at least) two bodies with different-colored clothes and hair. Should we be married to the idea that the one with brown hair is Elliot?

You're absolutely correct. Just because the alterations in Magus' appearance were induced magically, such as his hair colour, there is no reason to believe that the diamond would have removed the effects from Elliot and sent them along with Magus.

Well ... Dan's statement of "making Magus's clothing a different color from Elliot's", while not entirely exact, seem to imply it IS Magus who's clothes changed.

6 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

I was thinking that Sirleck never got around to possessing either awakened or mages, perhaps sticking to people with money, a nice outward sign of a successful host.  He might simply have never gotten around to looking for a magic-user who might actually have greater than normal magic resistance.  And Ellen, who is magical in origin, does have an advantage in magic resistance as has been pointed out.

It is definitely possibility. Still, I'm not sure why Dan decided for this ...

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11 hours ago, Illjwamh said:

My theory is that she is an awakened mage. I'm guessing Sirleck hasn't ever tried to possess anyone with any real magic ability before.

If true, that means his plan to possess Magus was doomed to failure anyway, so if that's not it, Ellen becomes a lot cooler.

my theory is that since ellen's existence is not entirely natural (note that magus reads her aura as being similar to the diamond), that certain things regarding the effects of magic don't work on her the same way as they did with sirleck's previous hosts

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15 minutes ago, weirdee said:

my theory is that since ellen's existence is not entirely natural (note that magus reads her aura as being similar to the diamond), that certain things regarding the effects of magic don't work on her the same way as they did with sirleck's previous hosts

Note that Abraham had trouble distinguishing her aura from Elliots. It's her magic energy which has similar feel as the diamond and hard to say how much it matters ...

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Note that Abraham had trouble distinguishing her aura from Elliots. It's her magic energy which has similar feel as the diamond and hard to say how much it matters ...

Yeah but Tara's assessment of Ellen stated that she had a "different sort of magic potential". Abraham's level of detection compared to Tara's might be like comparing Luke's level of detection to Abraham's. The main difference between Abraham and Tara is Abraham might have a hard time distinguishing between the auras, but he at least would know what to look for, Tara can clearly see a difference, but doesn't know why.

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5 minutes ago, Southern Cross said:

So it's likely that Luke is a potential wizard?

Seeing people auras doesn't necessarily make a person a wizard, it's just one of the many spells people can get, but Luke hasn't awakened so who knows really.

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One thing that occurred to me came from asking myself what would happen if Ellen threw Sirleck off her and hit Sirleck with a super-amped up FV5 along the lines of what she did to Vlad/Vladia.  Would it transform him/her/it?  If it did, would that kill Sirleck or find a loophole in what Ed Verres told Grace (you can't cure/humanize a Vampire without killing them).  I take Verres at his word as an expert on magic, but Ellen has done several things she shouldn't be able to do. 

  1. When Ellen transformed Vlad into Vladia the comic made a big deal of the fact that Vladia's face antennae were gone.  That shouldn't have happened and was chalked up to Ellen putting extra energy into her FV5 beam.
  2. Ellen copied Nanase's Guardian form.  Dan's expose on Ellen's spells specifically tells us she shouldn't have been able to do that though there might have been a Deity involved.
  3. Ellen just mentally arm-barred Sirleck.  Clearly Sirleck did not expect Ellen's mind to be able to assert itself.

We don't know why Ellen is capable of doing "impossible" things.  The only known variable we have is the fact that she was created by the Dewitchery Diamond (RIP), which suggests Ellen might have an aspect to her existence we haven't taken into account, but doesn't explain what it might be or how it works beyond Ellen getting over her early energy buildup problems quicker than Elliot.

 

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3 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

One thing that occurred to me came from asking myself what would happen if Ellen threw Sirleck off her and hit Sirleck with a super-amped up FV5 along the lines of what she did to Vlad/Vladia.  Would it transform him/her/it?  If it did, would that kill Sirleck or find a loophole in what Ed Verres told Grace (you can't cure/humanize a Vampire without killing them).  I take Verres at his word as an expert on magic, but Ellen has done several things she shouldn't be able to do. 

Vlad(ia) wasn't so "evil" before transforming nor so "good" afterwards. Why should transforming Sirleck into female aberration cure him?

5 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

When Ellen transformed Vlad into Vladia the comic made a big deal of the fact that Vladia's face antennae were gone.  That shouldn't have happened and was chalked up to Ellen putting extra energy into her FV5 beam.

While FV5 beam shouldn't be able to do that, it's not "impossible" in general.

5 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Ellen copied Nanase's Guardian form.  Dan's expose on Ellen's spells specifically tells us she shouldn't have been able to do that though there might have been a Deity involved.

... or Will of Magic's flair of drama. I'm still waiting if there is something about that in her spellbook.

6 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

Ellen just mentally arm-barred Sirleck.  Clearly Sirleck did not expect Ellen's mind to be able to assert itself.

Sirleck is not exactly expert on magic. Still, I'm not sure why Dan though it's good idea.

 

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13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Vlad(ia) wasn't so "evil" before transforming nor so "good" afterwards. Why should transforming Sirleck into female aberration cure him?

I didn't get the impression it was a question of "evilness".  Ed Verres says that Vampires give up "humanity and compassion" (or something like that) to become what they are.  It's the "giving up humanity" art that I find myself focusing on.

13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

While FV5 beam shouldn't be able to do that, it's not "impossible" in general.

Granted.  hence my using "impossible" with the quotes.  I don't however think anybody knew how Ellen achieved the transformation that she did.  The answer we got seemed more an educated guess to me.

13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... or Will of Magic's flair of drama. I'm still waiting if there is something about that in her spellbook.

Except Tedd's experience with Magic suggests it doesn't have a flair for the dramatic...

And Ellen seems to be as bad about keeping up on her spellbook as Elliot is.  I would really hate to see how a spellbook's overly verbose style would phrase all the stuff Dan put in EGS: NP about Ellen.

13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Sirleck is not exactly expert on magic. Still, I'm not sure why Dan though it's good idea.

We don't know how much magic Sirleck knows.  He ought to be an Awakened magic user of some kind just to be able to Vampirized himself.
 

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7 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

He liked it better than Ellen having no role whatsoever in this story save that of possession victim. I can kind of relate to that.

I'd add there should be one or more plot reasons for Ellen to be there (and do what she just did).  She could find out that she was created in order to set up Magus' rebirth (and probably get very mad about that), she could be there to throw some light on the odd things she can do that crop up, or something else entirely.  Dan could have kept Sirleck in/on the custodian's body if he just needed Sirleck to have a human vehicle to drive out to the Dewitchery Diamond with.

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1 minute ago, Vorlonagent said:

I'd add there should be one or more plot reasons for Ellen to be there.  She could find out that she was created in order to set up Magus' rebirth (and probably get very mad about that), she could be there to throw some light on the odd things she can do that crop up, or something else entirely.  Dan could have kept Sirleck in/on the custodian's body if he just needed Sirleck to have a human vehicle to drive out to the Dewitchery Diamond with.

Well, he obviously needed Ellen to fire the beam that allowed Magus to take over Elliot's body and since Sirleck was in the story anyway him possessing her was by far the simplest way to achieve that. But you nonetheless raise good points.

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16 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Sirleck is not exactly expert on magic. Still, I'm not sure why Dan though it's good idea.

Possibly because Sirleck possessing Magus would be very hard to defeat. I think the reason why body thieves like Sirleck are so hard for Immortals to deal with is that  that they are difficult to find and once found, it's difficult to kill them without killing their host. I still think my vision-thing theory is mostly true: once Ellen gets kicked out, Elliot/Cheerleadra will be able to see and hurt Sirleck on any plane he tries to hide in. Now, as to why Sirleck was so afraid of Pandora, Pandora could see Sirleck's true form; she probably spared him because killing his host would have broken Immortal Law.

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1 minute ago, The Old Hack said:

Well, he obviously needed Ellen to fire the beam that allowed Magus to take over Elliot's body and since Sirleck was in the story anyway him possessing her was by far the simplest way to achieve that. But you nonetheless raise good points.

I'll admit I forgot about that part...  :)

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3 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Possibly because Sirleck possessing Magus would be very hard to defeat. I think the reason why body thieves like Sirleck are so hard for Immortals to deal with is that  that they are difficult to find and once found, it's difficult to kill them without killing their host. I still think my vision-thing theory is mostly true: once Ellen gets kicked out, Elliot/Cheerleadra will be able to see and hurt Sirleck on any plane he tries to hide in. Now, as to why Sirleck was so afraid of Pandora, Pandora could see Sirleck's true form; she probably spared him because killing his host would have broken Immortal Law.

An Immortal personally destroying a Vampire is definitely against Immortal law so Pandora couldn't directly touch him without getting reset.  We just saw what happened when fear of reset ceased to restrain Pandora.

but Pandora goes for style points too.  I think she'd like to see Sirleck made a victim of his own cleverness or otherwise defeated in a trickster way than a power vs. power confrontation and this is why she pointed Magus toward him.  I don't know what she might have set up, but there ought to be something.

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47 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

An Immortal personally destroying a Vampire is definitely against Immortal law so Pandora couldn't directly touch him without getting reset.  We just saw what happened when fear of reset ceased to restrain Pandora.

On the material plane where humans live, yes--but Sirleck spends most of his time in the spirit plane, and Immortals seem to have open season there; look what they did to Magus. When Sirleck is attached to a host, he's probably out of bounds for most Immortals. Some very old Immortals, though, might be able to chew off pieces without hurting the host until there's not enough left of Sirleck to be Sirleck any more.

This is a really wild speculation, but one way of solving the Sirleck problem could be restoring his humanity. Never say never...

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